First up, money-money-money, where did Aunt Sally get her money? We’re living in the burbs, so she’s not rich or powerful enough to just break the rules, and if she had a sugar daddy, I’d have found some trace of him. Just because they don’t actually spray doesn’t mean human males don’t mark their territory. More to the point, unless he was a perv or had a death-wish, he wouldn’t want me around screwing up the screwing, so no, there was nobody paying for the privilege of being called “Daddy” by either of us.

Come on, Powers, throw me a bone here, and not the usual kind. “Sally Sanders Is A what?” Nurse, teacher, secretary, what? It couldn’t be something with weird hours or lots of travel, or something fun-but-disreputable like an actress, dancer, or model, because she’d managed to convince the local powers that she could be trusted to raise a kid on her own. She might have the only six-year-old in town who knew how to drive a truck, shoot a pistol, ride an elephant, and pull a train (eventually), but the law and the neighbors were going to expect her to wash me, feed me, dress me, kiss my boo-boos, and walk me to school. School?!

Aw, shit; today was my first day of school, and I was gonna be the Fucking New Kid. Thanks, new memories, that was just what I needed to learn right now. Well, I wasn’t showing up with a goddamn slice of toast in my mouth, so I set out to see what we had that I could turn into The Most Important Meal Of The Day.

No sign of a man, or any other house pets. Also no hint of cigarettes or booze, unless Aunt Sally had a clever hiding place a six-year-old couldn’t reach. Not that I wanted either; cigars had their suggestive uses and a good pipe tobacco was practically potpourri, but cigarettes were vile things useful only as props, and at my current size one drink would put me under the floor. Linoleum and wall-to-wall carpet, by the way, in patterns I didn’t want to see in daylight.

The jazzy-looking wall clock said it was just after 5 AM, so even if Sally was a morning person, I had plenty of time to go through her purse. My last visit to an America had been about sixty years down the road, so at first glance I thought we must be pretty broke, but then some of my new memories met up with my old ones. Everything was cheap these days, and the dollar was still almighty, and a suburban housewife couldn’t even get credit cards in her own name.

Hang on. All evidence pointed to it being just me and Sally in the house. No man’s coats in the closet, no pictures of an absent or dearly-departed hubby, no pictures of family at all, which was downright peculiar for the era. We had a nice house, a car in the driveway, a decent amount of cash, and no man; how did Sally support us in a way that didn’t shock the neighbors, and how did she manage to pull off a solo adoption of Yours Truly? What had the Old Man set me up with?

I needed more memories.

Naturally I knew my way around “Aunt” Sally’s house in the dark, which my tiny little-girl bladder was grateful for, because it took me a while to figure out the one-piece flannel PJs. I don’t think I’d ever gone to bed in something that was so difficult to take off. Clearly my wardrobe needed work, although I suspected my allowance might not cover a trip to Victoria’s Secret. If such things even existed here, and had an Adorable Moppet department.

Since I didn’t hear my new guardian moving around, I decided to scope out the joint and let it trigger my new memories more organically. Bad news: the appliances and decor absolutely screamed Late-Fifties American Midwest, an era I’d worked in a few times before and had zero affection for. Leaded gas, burnt coffee, fatty foods, cigarettes everywhere, and social mores to make a succubus weep.

On the bright side, if this Earth followed the usual pattern, I should have tits in time for The Summer Of Love.

I had memories to go with the new body. Nothing unusual in my former line of work, but this wasn’t a job, it was going to be my life. I switched the light back off, closed my eyes, and started finding out who I was.

Name: Virginia Vesta White; for fuck’s sake, he might as well have just called me Chastity Cherry McPure.

Occupation: child; no shit.

Base of operations: Aunt Sally’s house; well, at least I didn’t have parents to deal with.

Known associates: Sally Sanders, unrelated legal guardian. Oh, great, I’m “living under the name of Sanders”; the fun just never stops. Let me guess, she’s cheerful and blonde and perky and eager to get involved with molding and shaping my future womanhood. Heh, that part could actually be fun, in the nasty way Classic Me had dealt with the other girls.

Tech level couldn’t be too bad, since I’d already found a light switch. Indoor plumbing was likely, which was good, since I’d just discovered I had a bladder the size of a teacup and desperately needed to pee. I still had plenty of Virginia’s memories to unpack, but they’d be easier to face without the risk of wetting the bed.

My Whole New World was dark and fuzzy when I woke up for the first time. I fumbled around until my hands closed on a pair of glasses: big, chunky, thick-lensed things. Oh you are fucking kidding me.

Once I could focus, I saw that there wasn’t going to be any fucking for a long, long time. I was wearing flannel pajamas, the kind with built-in feet. I had a teddy bear. I had nothing going on from the neck down. I was a kid. A little kid. A sit-on-daddy’s-lap-without-making-him-squirm child.

I’d never been a child. My life started the day a Power pointed me at my first dick and showed me the ropes. Professionally, I mean; I learned about bondage on my own. I’d never been anything but an Inspirer Of Men, First Class (Succubus Division). Admittedly, I’d invented the title myself; we were just tools to them, and who names their screwdrivers? Muse was one of the things mortals called us, although they had some funny ideas about how we worked.

I found a light switch and a mirror, and started swearing. 68 inches of prime shaggy-maned redhead was just gone, and I didn’t even have my own face. I was short, skinny, and worst of all, cute. I had curly brown hair just past my shoulders, huge brown eyes, an upturned nose, and murder in my heart. I was six years old.

I was in Hell.

The Old Man gave me one last job, promising that when it was done, my Graduation would be nothing to fear. A new life, a fresh start, A Whole New World where I wasn’t stuck in a rut, pun intended. I’d still be me, but I’d be free; out of the game, on my own, no obligations to any Powers. I really, really should have gotten the details up front.

I did the job. I very thoroughly inspired an engineer to build a new kind of bridge that would connect two competing civilizations in a way that blah-blah-blah, seriously, who cares? Dull smart guy needed an ego boost and a major push, and nothing builds ego like banging a hottie who’s way out of his league. Pro tip: if you want to make absolutely sure you’re a guy’s type, give him a quick peek when he’s about 11, then come back and nail his 30-year-old-virgin ass to the floor. Never fails.

Like I said, I was made for this job, literally. Head to toe, inside and out, every curve, every gesture, every little freckle, everything went into making me an irresistible, inspiring temptation. I was looking forward to putting it all to good use, post-Graduation.

The son of a bitch gave me a new body.

He turned me down.

Fuck me, I can barely say it. In the three hours it took me to pull my new Hero out of that hidden world, he’d spent three years bonding with one of the other girls (Annoyingly Clever Little Sister Division). Worse, he’d also somehow gotten his hands on one of the experimental models, a severely fuckable cat-hybrid thingie the Powers had come up with a while back and dumped when she turned feral.

He chose them when he could have had me, and he’d even had me enough to make an informed decision. He hadn’t even popped them yet and still liked them better.

Even worse, he’d learned shit from them; he knew what we were, more or less, and he knew how to unmake us. I was in mid-taunt when he started Naming me, and I could feel it coming at me like a freight train. Names define you, limit you, change you, and he was really pissed off at me. Have I mentioned I’m a bitch? Yeah, keep that fact handy at all times, it’ll come up a lot.

Anyway, I was actually grateful when someone stopped him from turning me into a mouse, metaphorically speaking, until I looked over and saw a Power. One of the major players had tracked me down and caught me with my hand in the nookie jar.

I. Was. Fucked.

After three solid days of bump-and-grinding my way through the stasis spell, I had my Hero. To seal the deal, I fed him a story about saving the world from demons and then slid back along his lifeline. I could feel his recent death through our newly-forged connection, so I went back to the night before, fucked him silly to convince him he was the white knight to my dream girl, and then snuck back home to there to steal every bit of hero gear I could get my hands on.

I still don’t know how I missed. I’d never missed before. I could nail a fifty-year-old has-been in a truck-stop men’s room, jump to a sixteenth birthday he’d never forget, and be back in his limo to congratulate him on his amazing string of business successes before he had time to zip up. Sliding up and down a man’s lifeline was as easy for me as, well, you know.

Apparently I was off by three weeks. Even the most satisfied man can figure out that something’s wrong if you give him three weeks to think about it. Worse, when I slid back to our mutual present to pick him up, I couldn’t get through the door.

I was the best in the business, a tough, seasoned pro with hundreds of years of successful “inspirations” under my belt, so I did not hide in a corner and cry my heart out over the unfairness of a universe that kicked me to the curb, held out one last tasty-looking carrot, and then slammed the fucking door in my face.

I dried my eyes and got to work. I needed a Hero, and a mountee always got her man.